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AMUSEMENTS 

Or: No Harm Things 



A. 


LEE ALDRICH 














































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A. LEE ALDRICH 


























































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AMUSE¬ 

MENTS 

OR 

No Harm Things 


BY A LEE ALDRICH 

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44 


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Practical Publishing Co 

No. 1137 Vincent Avenue, North 
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA 




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MRS. A. LEE ALDRICH 


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FOREWORD 


HTHOSE who read these pages should 
remember that these words were 
spoken to audiences and have been 
printed as they were spoken. 

No thought as to being a literary 
genius is entertained by the Author. 

The Author has simply expressed in 
words his mind and presented facts re¬ 
garding the subjects in question. 

If they have any value it is because 
they are the message from a living man, 
with a heart burning with honest convic¬ 
tions. 

In presenting these pages to the public 
we hope and pray God’s blessing may rest 
upon the readers as it has upon the 
hearers. 


THE PUBLISHERS. 


Copyright, 1917 
Practical Publishing Co. 


/ 

MM -7 1917 

©CU4623U 

v 




CHAPTER I 


INTRODUCTION 

Matthew 7:13-23. “Enter ye in at the 
strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad 
is the way, that leadeth to destruction, 
and many there be which go in thereat: 

“Because strait is the gate, and narrow 
is the way, which leadeth unto life, and 
few there be that find it. 

“Beware of false prophets, which come 
to you in sheep’s clothing; but inwardly 
they are ravening wolves. 

“Ye shall know them by their fruits. 
Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of 
thistles? 

“Even so every good tree bringeth 
forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree 
bringeth forth evil fruit. 

“A good tree cannot bring forth evil 
fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring 
forth good fruit. 

“Every tree that bringeth not forth 
good fruit is hewn down, and cast into 
the fire. 

“WHEREFORE BY THEIR FRUITS 
YE SHALL KNOW THEM. 

“Not every one that saith unto me, 
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom 
of heaven; but he that doeth the will of 
my Father which is in heaven. 


8 


AMU S E M E N T S 


'‘Many will say to me in that day, Lord, 
Lord, have we not prophesied in thy 
name? and in thy name have cast out 
devils? and in thy name done many won¬ 
derful works? 

“And then will I profess unto them, I 
never knew you: depart from me, ye 
that work iniquity.” 

My Motive 

“BY THEIR FRUITS HE SHALL 
KNOW THEM.” I know the result of 
this message before I begin. Many have 
come here tonight saying, “ I would like 
to see a preacher that could convince me 
of the wrong of these things.” You know 
the old saying, “A man convinced against 
his will is of the same opinion still.” 

There is scarcely any phase of Christian 
life and experience that is of more prac¬ 
tical importance to the believer in Christ 
who is seeking to conscientiously serve 
his Lord and Master, than that which 
deals with the question of right and 
wrong amusements. One is constantly 
asked as to whether this or that form of 
amusement is proper or improper for a 
Christian. The question of amusements 
for the Christian is one that cannot be 
lightly cast aside. It is a problem that 
must be faced. 

I have no desire to cover with flesh 
colored court plaster these cancers of 
society that are eating away the moral 



AMUSEMENTS 


9 


fiber of our young people and destroying 
the spiritual life of our church members, 
but I want to cut deep and take the thing 
out by the roots. 

It hurts when you cut deep. I suppose 
some will be hurt. You know it takes 
bitter medicine to cure a bad case. There 
is no use pouring on the oil to heal until 
you have taken out the infection. I am 
going after the infection first and then 
pour on the oil later. The old Indian 
said, "no hurt no cure.” 

By the straight forwardness of this mes¬ 
sage, I will lose friends, but with the cry 
of lost souls ringing in my ears and with 
my heart burning with conviction, I 
must cry out against these evils that are 
sapping the spiritual life of our churches. 
If any of you get tired and want to go 
out and walk around the block, there will 
be plenty left when you get back. If any 
of you want to go out, I hope you will go 
quietly so as not to wake anyone. I have 
only one motive in giving you this mes¬ 
sage: That is to make it easier to do 
right and harder for you to do wrong. 

It is the business of the preacher today 
to give the people what they need, not 
what they want. The entertainer gives 
the people what they want. The true 
preacher gives the people what they need 
whether they like it or not. That is just 
what I am here for; to give you what I 



10 


A MUSE M E N T S 


think you need most whether it suits 
your taste or not. 

A Painful Operation 

This is a painful operation I have to 
perform. I have always prayed God to 
make every one of my sermons a surgical 
operation to cut sin out of man. I had an 
uncle who died with a cancer. He had a 
little pimple on his chin. Every time he 
would shave, he would irritate it, and it 
finally developed into a cancer. For a 
number of years this little enemy was 
covered with a flesh colored court plaster. 
If you met him on the street you would 
hardly realize that he was suffering from 
an ugly cancer, but after a time this 
enemy had so developed that there was 
no hope of covering it any longer. My 
uncle was confined to his bed, and for 
four years with his lower jaw nearly all 
eaten away, they fed him with a tube in 
his neck. If that little enemy had been 
taken out with a knife, roots and all, it 
would have left only a little scar and he 
might have been alive today. There are 
little enemies which creep into our lives 
and eat away at our spiritual life. Some 
people see no harm in them, or at least 
say they do not. There is no harm in 
whiskey itself; the harm begins when you 
put it to your mouth. You never will be 
a drunkard if you do not take your first 
drink. When a man has had one drink, 



AMUSE M ENTS 


11 


he wants two. The same is true with the 
cards, theater and the dance. 

Not a Question of No Harm 

In the first place the question is not, 
“Is there any harm in them?” but the 
question tonight with every Christian 
should be, “Is there any good in them?” 
I challenge you tonight to show me any 
good in the cards, the dance, or the 
theater. How many of you were converted 
in a theater? Stand up, I would like to 
see you. How many of you were convert¬ 
ed at a card table? How many of you 
ever received any good at a dance? 

Now, I am not here to drive stakes for 
you to live by, but my rule for living is to 
do nothing that will hurt me mentally, 
physically or spiritually. If there is no 
harm in these things, one thing we know 
there is no good in them, and you as 
Christians have ncr time to waste on 
things in which you can find no good. 
Life is too short and there is too much 
work to do to spend any time doing the 
thing in which there is no good. 

The Christian life is not to be devoid of 
amusement. Christianity is to be con¬ 
sidered as being in no sense hostile to 
pleasure and recreation. It rejoices not 
in melancholy, takes no pleasure in the 
somber countenance, and places no prem¬ 
ium upon the monk, the ascetic, and the 
hermit; it quenches no laugh, suppresses 



12 


AMUSEM E NTS 


no smile, extinguishes no happiness; on 
the contrary, in its presence is fulness of 
joy, and at its right hand there are pleas¬ 
ures for evermore. 

“How tedious and tasteless the hours, 
When Jesus no longer I see: 

Sweet prospects, sweet birds, and sweet 
flowers 

Have all lost their sweetness for me; 
The midsummer sun shines but dim, 
The flowers no longer look gay; 

But when I am happy in Jesus, 
December's as pleasant as May.” 

William Evans, of Moody School, Chi¬ 
cago, has well said, “Amusement is to 
work what whetting the scythe is to har¬ 
vesting; he who never stops to create an 
edge toils hard and cuts but little while 
he who whets the scythe all day cuts 
none.” 

“It has been said that Jesus Christ 
never laughed. This statement may be 
rightly questioned. The children would 
never have flocked to Him as they did if 
He had not had a smiling face. That He 
was the opposite of John the Baptist, the 
stern ascetic, is clearly evident from 
Christ's own words: “We have piped 
unto you, and ye have not danced.’ John 
came neither eating nor drinking. The 
Son of Man came eating and drinking, 
and they say, ‘Behold, a man gluttonous, 
and a wine-bibber.” His counsel to the 



A M U S E M ENTS 


13 


disciples to the effect that when they 
fasted they should not go about with long 
faces and in mournful garb as the hypo¬ 
crites did, but on the contrary, that they 
should anoint their faces, and put on a 
cheerful countenance—all this indicates, 
we feel sure, that Jesus was always incul¬ 
cating happiness and a cherry disposition. 
Christ wept, it is true, but He wept that 
we might laugh, just as He died that we 
might live. His sorrow was our joy, true; 
but His joy was always full and running 
over.” 

Different When Christ Comes In 

There can be no question but that the 
advent of Christ into any man’s life does 
change the attitude of that man toward 
amusements. Indeed, his attitude toward 
life in all its aspects is changed. He has 
become “a new creature; old things are 
passed away; behold, all things have be¬ 
come new.” He has new companions, 
new affections, new desires, new emotions, 
new pleasures. The impulsive power of a 
new affection now controls his whole 
being. It is only natural, therefore, to 
expect that his attitude toward amuse¬ 
ments should be influenced by his con¬ 
version. From henceforth he is to be 
separated from the world, nor is he any 
longer to be conformed to its ways and 
fashions. “Love not the world . . . The 



14 


AMUSEMENTS 


lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and 
the pride of life.” 

Whenever, therefore, any pleasure in¬ 
vades the moral and spiritual nature, then 
it is time to call a halt. Whenever any 
amusement in which the Christian en¬ 
gages interferes with his duty to God, to 
Christ, and to the church, it is high time 
to stop and consider the propriety of such 
pleasure. Whatever unfits for devotion, 
for the enjoyment of prayer and the read¬ 
ing of the Bible, cannot, by any process 
of reasoning, be made to appear to the 
advantage of any follower of Jesus Christ. 
When it becomes necessary to break 
the Sabbath day in order to satisfy 
a desire for pleasure and amusement, 
it is time to realize that no pleasure 
that calls for such sacrifice of principle 
can be legitimate and really profita¬ 
ble. 

Why do Christians ask, “Is it wrong to 
go to the theater or to play cards, or to 
dance?” . Why, if not because there is a 
conscientious doubt about the matter? 
Why not ask if it is wrong to pray, or to 
read the Bible, or to go to church? 

In settling the question of the right or 
wrong of certain amusements the Chris¬ 
tian must make his appeal to his con¬ 
science, and inquire as to whether such 
pleasure meets with the approval of this 
vice-regent of God in the soul. To do 
anything, to go anywhere, to play any 



AMUSE M ENTS 


15 


game, or indulge in any pleasure, no 
matter of what sort it is, which the con¬ 
science condemns is to commit sin in the 
doing thereof. 

The question every Christian should ask 
himself is, “How much can I avoid the 
appearance of evil, how far from danger 
can I keep?” not “How near can I get 
and not be hurt?” 

A woman wanted to hire a coachman, 
and one morning a man called at her 
home and she said, “Man, if you were out 
driving along the narrows, how near 
would you drive my carriage to the preci¬ 
pice?” He replied, “Oh, I would not 
drive any nearer than six feet.” 

She said, “I guess you are dismissed.” 
The second one called and she said to 
him, “If you were driving in the narrows, 
how near would you drive my carriage to 
the precipice?” 

He answered, “Madam, I would keep as 
far away as possible.” He got the posi¬ 
tion. It is not a question how near like 
the world we can live and get into heaven; 
the question is how near like our Master 
can we live; how far away from these 
things that hinder our spiritual life can 
we keep? 

A Question of Character as Well as 
Christianity 

There was a time in my ministry when 
I said this message did not apply to un- 



16 


AMUSEMENTS 


saved but what I had to say was for 
Christians only. I have since changed 
my mind; it is not a question of Chris- 
ianity. There is so much harm being 
done today by these worldly amusements 
that it is no longer a question of Christ¬ 
ianity. It is a question of character and 
even if you are not a Christian, I say, you 
can not afford to do a thing that is going 
to hurt the other fellow. 

The real question is not what these 
amusements SHOULD BE, nor what 
they MIGHT BE, if restricted, but what 
they REALLY ARE. 

We are now ready to examine the fun¬ 
damental Christian principles which are 
to regulate and modify the amusements 
of the Christian. And will you remember 
that we are here dealing with principles, 
not laws. No laws can be found which 
will successfully control the amusement 
question. Many will break every law you 
make. And, further, what might be a 
law under given conditions to one person, 
could not, in the very nature of the case, 
and under different circumstances, be a 
law unto another. Laws are human, 
principles are devine; we make laws, 
principles are laid down for us. Laws are 
transitory and shifting, principles are 
unchanging and eternal. 

Says Sir Arthur Helps, “There are no 
two words that are used so confusedly as 
rule and principled You can make a rule, 



A M U S E M E N T S 


17 


you can not make a principle. You can 
lay down a rule; you cannot, properly 
speaking, lay down a principle; it is laid 
down for you. You may establish a rule 
but you cannot establish a principle; you 
can only declare it. Rules are in your 
power, principles are not. 

I cannot drive stakes for you to live 
by, but I can give you a rule that will 
help you and it is a rule which every man 
and woman can apply to their own lives. 
“Never do anything that hurts you 
physically, mentally or spiritually.” 

Apply this test to the card table. Does 
this popular amusement furnish recrea¬ 
tion for the mind? With its passions, its 
tenseness, its excitement, its late hours, 
does the game of chance rest and quicken 
the faculties for the labors of the next 
day? Does not the game dissipate rather 
than recreate the mind? 

Apply this standard to dancing. Some 
have said that one does not need brains 
for dancing, unless it be in the heels. 
Does the atmosphere, the passion, the 
whirl and dazzling fascination, the late 
hours, do all these recreate or disspiate? 
Which? On the right answer to this 
question depends the right or wrong of 
this amusement for the Christian. There 
can be but one answer to this question. 

No Double Standard 

Some seem to have a double standard. 
Some have an idea that because they are 



18 


AMUSEMENTS 


not professing Christians they have a 
right to do some things that they them¬ 
selves would not expect a Christian to do. 
I am unable to find any double standard 
in my Bible. The fact that you are not 
a Christian does not give you a license to 
do anything that is wrong, and I believe 
when every church member expects as 
much of himself as he does of his pastor, 
this message tonight will be unnecessary 
Some people have an idea that a minister 
of the gospel is sort of a wingless angel 
and that God expects him to live like an 
angel while some of the church members 
can live like the Devil. God has called 
me to preach and you to plow, but we 
are both responsible to live right in the 
sight of God. 

You know as well as I do, even though 
you are not a church member or even a 
professing Christian, that if I should go 
out after this meeting and go into a dance 
hall, or into a card party and either dance 
or play cards until two o’clock in the morn¬ 
ing, you would say, “Yes, he is a nice 
evangelist. He had better practice what 
he preaches.” And you would never 
come back to hear me preach again. I 
ask you where did you get your double 
standard? If a thing is right for you to 
do, it is right for me to do, and if it is 
wrong for me to do it, it is wrong for you 
to do it. 



AMUSEMENTS 


19 


Success Means Sacrifice 

If we are going to have God’s blessing 
upon our lives and make the Christian 
life worth while, there are some things we 
must sacrifice. Life is a life of sacrifices. 

The man who is going to succeed in 
business must sacrifice some things. The 
young man who is going to succeed, 
sacrifices time, money and strength that 
he may get the education that will help 
him through life. We have made the 
Christian life too convenient. My great¬ 
est accusation against the theater, the 
dance, and the cards, is that they kill 
spiritual life. You can not show me a 
card-playing, dancing church member in 
this building or in this city that is any 
good in a revival meeting. It is not the 
card-playing, dancing church members 
that attend the prayer meetings. I tell 
you these things do not mix. In my ex¬ 
perience I have never found a card¬ 
playing, dancing church member who 
was a soul winner, and I have never 
found in nine years experience a card¬ 
playing, dancing official board that 
would unite in a campaign like this. 
In many cases where the men did not 
dance or play cards, when the wife and 
daughter did, the men opposed the cam¬ 
paign. I say to you tonight, if there is no 
other harm in the cards and the dance 
that is harm enough. If the fact that a 
man’s wife and daughter play cards and 



20 


AMUSE M E N T S 


dance, keeps him out of a movement like 
this, that is harm enough. There are 
hundreds of young people in this city, 
who have lost the blessing of this cam¬ 
paign because their father or mother saw 
no harm in the cards or the dance and 
were not united in this movement. So 
much for the introduction. 

It Gets Worse Farther On 

The farther we go, the worse it gets. If 
any of you want to go before I go any 
further, now would be a good time. If 
you see some woman get up, swish out 
and her skirts crack around the end of the 
seat like a fox's tail around a brush pile, 
you will know what is the trouble. The 
other night I was speaking about men who 
sell liquor without a license, and a woman 
whose husband was in that very business, 
jumped up and swished out. If he were 
not guilty, why did she go? You know 
if you throw a stone into a pack of dogs, 
the one that gets hit always yelps. If 
you hear any yelping around here tomor¬ 
row you will know the trouble. 

I heard about a man, who after a 
service something like this, had a lady 
come to him very much excited and said 
that she had been robbed of a gold watch 
during the service. He answered, “All 
right, I will get your watch. Do not tell 
anyone about it." The next night when 
he came into the building, he brought in 



A M U S E M E NTS 


21 


three large cobble stones in his hand and 
placed them on the puplit. In the middle 
of his address he stopped, took off his 
coat, rolled up his sleeve, picked up one 
of the big stones and then said, “There is 
a man sitting in this audience who last 
night stole a woman's watch. I think I 
can hit him with the first stone. If I do 
not, I will get him with the second." He 
made a “swipe" at the audience with his 
right arm. The fellow “ducked" his 
head. The officer went down and arrested 
him. If you see anybody “ducking” out, 
it will be pretty good evidence he has 
been hit. 


































































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CHAPTER II 


THE CARDS QUESTION 

I wonder how many card players know 
why cards were invented? Let me give 
you a little history. There was an 
idiotic old king, and the only way he 
could be pacified was to paint his picture 
on cards and give him these cards to 
play with. All the idiots from that day 
until this have been fumbling with the 
same old card boards with the picture of 
an idiotic king upon them. 

Mr. Edison was riding on a train and 
three men across the aisle with the seats 
turned together, wanted a game of cards 
but they lacked one man. They looked 
across the aisle and said, “‘Would you 
like to join us in the game?” Edison 
looked over at them and said, “I have 
better use for my brains.” 

If the loss of time was the only thing 
against cards, we would not speak about 
it. One of the leading physicians of this 
country told me he used to gamble. He 
said if the loss of time or even the money 
that is lost in gambling were the only 
thing against it, it would not be so bad. 
He gave me a new view point. He said, 
“I would gamble until twelve or one 
o’clock and something about gambling 


24 


AMUSE M E N T S 


excites a man's nervous system. I would 
go home and try to sleep but it was only 
a half sleep. I was half conscious and in 
the morning I was unfit for business. My 
nerves were unsteady and I was unfit to 
operate on people. No man can gamble 
and keep at it and succeed in life." 

We are not to be understood as saying 
that the mere playing of a game of cards 
is considered a sin in itself. Certainly 
we do not intend to convey the idea that 
every man and woman who plays cards 
is bad; nor even that such card-players 
are not even Christians. Three-quarters 
of a million packs of euchre playing cards 
are issued annually. It is claimed that, 
outside of the race-track, nine-tenths of 
the gambling is done at the card-table. 
Society holds from two to five card parties 
weekly. From estimates gathered for one 
year recently the following facts regard¬ 
ing the card table are astounding: As a 
result of card playing 128 persons were 
shot or stabbed; six attempted and 
twenty-four committed suicide; sixty 
others were murdered in cold blood, sixty- 
eight were ruined financially, two went 
insane, forty-three committed forgery 
and embezzlement, thirty-two bank cash¬ 
iers absconded with trust funds, three 
millions of dollars were embezzled for 
gambling purposes. 

“If,” says a writer, “we could under¬ 
stand the ruin, penetrate the mysteries, 



AMU S E M E N T S 


25 


reckon up the ruined lives, blighted homes 
blasted characters which some well-mean¬ 
ing (Christian?) people have been re¬ 
sponsible for in the fact that they have 
encouraged the game of cards, we should 
not need to plead for its abolition.” From 
all this it is clear that there is a tremen¬ 
dous issue 'at stake in dealing with the 
social function known as the card-table. 

We shall hardly be accused of unfairness 
if in our indictment of the card table we 
claim that it is, to say the least, a ques¬ 
tionable amusement for the Christian. 
It has the “appearance of evil” certainly. 
It .has always been looked upon with 
some degree of suspicion. Whether we 
like it or not, men have always associated 
cards with gambling. The logic that 
leads men to argue thus may not be very 
sound, but it is undeniable. The card 
table indicated as a waste of good time 
for the Christian. By reason of the de¬ 
mands of society it is impossible to look 
upon cards any longer as amusement or 
pastime. Card-playing has become a per¬ 
fect craze—one which holds men and 
women helpless in its grasp. Society 
demands too much time for this game. 
Can any conscientious Christian imagine 
that he can give a satisfactory answer to 
God for the use of his time when he has 
spent from two to three nights of each 
week around the card table? 



26 


AMUS E M E N T S 


Are all card players dishonest? Do 
they all cheat? We would not say so; it 
cannot be denied, however, that the ten¬ 
dency of the game is to promote just such 
vices. The sly nod, the suggestive wink, 
the knowing look—these things may be 
rightly called cheating. Look at the 
jealousies, the envy, the alienations card¬ 
playing leads to. It is for this reason 
that card-playing has been banished in 
the United States Navy. Because it leads 
to strife, envy and brawls, infidel owners 
of lumber camps in the Northwest have 
forbidden the playing of cards in the 
camps. Because of the bad results from 
card-playing the state of Texas arrests 
anyone found playing cards on its trains. 
That card-playing leads to gambling there 
can be no question. Statistics show that 
eight-tenths of the gamblers arrested 
learned to play cards at home. Much of 
the card-playing today is gambling. When 
ever there is a prize offered for the game, 
there is gambling. 

Minneapolis physicians well known in 
the treatment of nervous troubles agree 
with the New York Medical Journal, 
which in its current issue editorially de¬ 
nounces card-playing as a serious menace 
to the nerves of the player, and as a 
mental narcotic, the effect of which was 
called most disastrous. Card-playing 
with any degree of regularity or frequency, 
some of the local practitioners said, 



A M U S E M E NTS 


27 


among other things, demoralizes the 
nervous system, irritates the nerves, pro¬ 
duces mental instability, grows on the 
player until he is a slave of a nerve 
racldng habit. 

“If you saw some of the patients I get 
whose condition is traceable to excessive 
card-playing you would not question the 
statements of the New York publication 
for a minute,” said Dr. W. A. Jones. 
“Frequent card-playing is most harmful 
for persons whose nerves are easily 
shaken and the bad part of it is that those 
are just the persons who are most likely 
to become inveterate players. The result 
is to demoralize and irritate the nervous 
system and to produce mental instability. 
The nerve control is steadily weakened/’ 

Why Different From Other Games 

A great many people ask what is the 
difference between the euchre deck and 
other games, especially card games. As 
much difference as there is between heaven 
and hell. You say, “Mr. Aldrich, do you 
believe in dominoes, checkers and flinch?” 
Well, I have never seen any great harm 
come from them. I very seldom play 
any of these games because I never have 
the time. I have played one game of 
checkers this winter; that was with Mr. 
Perkins while I was waiting in a public 
place and had nothing else to do. 



28 


A M U S E M ENTS 


The difference between a game of 
checkers and cards is here disclosed. The 
checker game has all the factors of the 
game spread out before you. 

Each player sees exactly the position of 
his opponent’s disks and can marshall his 
own accordingly. On the other hand in 
the card game, where four are playing 
besides the cards to be drawn from the 
rest of the deck, each player is dealt a 
hand. Clearly there are five actors in 
the game, but each player sees only his 
own hand. His skill in the card game 
must differ from that in playing checkers, 
where everything is visible. In the card 
game it consists in acquiring this hidden 
four-fifths knowledge by the lever of the 
one-fifth. This produces the element of 
chance. The player looks carefully over 
his hand and decides that one card is the 
best one to play. Each of these faculties, 
intellect, conscience and will acting to¬ 
gether, passes upon the play. But be¬ 
hold when each opponent has played his 
hand, the player finds he has been mis¬ 
taken. 

How the Player Figures 

At the second play, the intellect is con¬ 
sulted, but is at once confused, inasmuch 
as having used its best judgment and lost, 
it can but hesitatingly decide on the next 
card to be played. What intellect cannot 
determine conscience cannot morally es- 



A M U S £ M E N T S 


29 


timate and in consequence will hesitate 
to act. After weighing the next play in 
the light of previous failure, intellect 
chooses again. This time when each has 
played, the trick is won. The third play 
is on. Again must intellect pass upon the 
card. The player has now one trick lost, 
one won and little to guide from the two 
previous plays as to the third. Again there 
is confusion. Intellect says to conscience, 
“What, shall I play?” Conscience says, 
“That is your task to decide. I will pass 
upon the morals of it after you hand your 
opinion over to me.” Will says, “When 
you and conscience have passed upon the 
rational and moral, I will signal brain and 
muscle to play it.” Accordingly all three 
are baffled. After using their best skill 
they are again compelled to hazard the 
desired results. All three are put on the 
stretch, like a rubber band pulled to the 
breaking point. 

Demands Another “Spree” 

The visible effect shows itself in the 
growing interest and intense excitement 
of the game. Every nerve is on the edge, 
the breath comes short and fast, the blood 
rushes to the brain, the temper is heated 
and unloosed; the desire to win becomes a 
passion; conscience becomes feverish; bar¬ 
riers go down; dishonesty is resorted to 
and there ensues a general riot. That is 
what really happens to the physical nature 



30 


AMUSE M ENTS 


when alcohol is taken into the system. 
The reigning powers are gradually deteri¬ 
orated—at first by mild stimulation, then 
by intoxication, finally, if long indulged, 
by inebriation. Intellect, conscience and 
will reel and totter under the drugging of 
chance and remain so until the stimula¬ 
tion is over and they sober up like a 
drunken man, but the appetite is created 
and soon asserts itself, demanding, as 
alcohol, another spree. 

In the New York Medical Journal, the 
editor writes this scathing indictment of 
cards from a purely medical standpoint: 
'‘Card-playing is a pure and simple 
mental dissipation, that grows upon the 
victim like all other dissipations, to the 
eventual exclusion of logical and close 
thinking. Skill counts for only three per 
cent in even the most scientific card 
games. The legend which attributed the 
invention of playing cards to the necessity 
of amusing a mad king of France, possesses 
vericimilitude. Appealing primarily to 
the imperfectly balanced mind they soon 
reduce that of a better quality to the same 
level. They are comparable in every way 
to the drug-forming habit and lead surely 
to the neglect of every sane and healthy 
amusement, to say nothing of business 
and professional duties. 

Ever since the day cards were invented 
to satisfy the whims of an idiotic king, 
they have been the tools of the gambler. 



A M U S E M E N T S 


31 


There was John J. Quinn, the converted 
gambler. John Quinn was for forty-five 
years a professional faro bank dealer and 
poker player. He was among five men 
that were paid a salary of $7,000 a year 
They were expert faro bank dealers, and 
“draw” and “stud” poker players. When 
some green fellow came in and things 
went their way they would just call in 
John Quinn and he would skin the fellow 
out of all the money that he had. 

He was arrested for working a three- 
card-monte game on some fellows and 
had to do time at Jeffersonville, and while 
there his house burned down and his 
wife and little girl died. There he was, a 
prematurely old man. He fell on his 
knees crying to God, “If you will only 
get me out of here I will promise to quit 
gambling and go up and down the land 
and show the people that you can not 
beat a gambler at his own game.” God 
heard him and he got out. 

Some of his friends took up a collection 
and got him a private car and fitted it up 
with all the gambler's pharaphernalia. 
He showed that it is impossible to beat a 
gambler at his own game. John Quinn 
would take a faro box and shove a pack 
of cards in it. Then he would shuffle the 
cards and while he was shuffling he would 
tell you what would come up. He would 
bring up any card he wanted, and you 
would not see how he did it, because his 



32 


A M U S E M E N T S 


hand was quicker than your eye. Listen 
to Quinn crying to the crowd, after forty- 
five years a professional gambler, saying 
that he was taught to play cards in a 
professing Christian’s home. 

I charge in behalf of the poor gambler, 
that the so-called Christian homes are 
the kindergarten of gambling. What do 
you find down in the old greasy gambling 
hell? A lot of old fouled mouthed gamb¬ 
lers. On the table dominoes? I should 
say not! Checkers? Never! Flinch? 
Nothing doing! You find the gambler’s 
tool, the euchre deck. You say, “1 see 
no harm in the cards.” But several times 
m my experience, I have slipped in to a 
so-called Christian home a little unex¬ 
pectedly. The night before they had had 
a card party and they had left the euchre 
deck on the parlor table. I noticed the 
woman went in ahead of me and made a 
strange quick move around the corner of 
the table and slipped something in the 
drawer? Now, if there is no harm in the 
thing, why was she ashamed of it? 

Suddenly Become Pious 

Some people become very pious during 
a revival meeting and are very much 
afraid that the evangelist, by breaking a 
chair, might lower the dignity of the 
pulpit. I am here tonight to tell you 
that the dignity of the pulpit in our 
churches is being lowered by that 



AMUSEMENTS 


33 


prayerless, Godless, card-playing, 
theater-going, dancing bunch of 
church members more than by any¬ 
body else, and they are the very peo¬ 
ple who oppose an evangelist. 

The Social Game 

You say, “But, Mr. Aldrich, is there 
any harm in the social game at home? ,, 
I tell you, women, I am more afraid of 
that social game at home than I am of 
the gambling hell. If your boy never 
learns to play at home, he will never 
learn in a gambling hell. The gamblers 
have no time to learn a “greener,” but if 
you teach your boy at home, he will 
graduate in the gambling hell. Many a 
poor foolish mother has said, “I play 
cards with my boy at home so he will not 
go down town and play.” Why doesn’t 
she say, “I swear a little with my boy at 
home so he will not go down town and 
swear.” She might as well say. “I drink 
a little whiskey with my boy at home so 
he will not go down town and drinrk.” 
I am told by Mr. Jacoby, one of the men 
who was a leading gambler in this country, 
a man who traveled around the world 
with Dr. Torrey in his evangelistic cam¬ 
paigns and is now superintendent of a 
large mission in Chicago, that the gambl- 
ler’s passion is worse than the drink pas¬ 
sion. 

Mrs. A. S. Sims, at one time the cham¬ 
pion woman-whist-player of the United 



34 


AMU S E M E N T S 


States says, “I firmly believe card-playing 
and dancing are two of the greatest evils 
in all Christian civilization. It is a fact 
beyond dispute that it is from the drawing 
room card table that the gambling den’s 
recruits are drawn. The card craze, as it 
prevails among the women of this country, 
is the most serious competitor the church 
has today.” 

I guarantee you that three-fourths of 
the people who have refused to enter into 
this campaign are card-players. Mother, 
you take a few drinks with your boy at 
home so he won’t go down town and 
drink, and you have created an appetite 
for drink. When you do not satisfy 
that boy’s appetite for drink, he will go 
down town where he can finish the job. 
You play cards at home with your boy 
and create within him a passion for cards; 
when you do not play to satisfy the boy, 
he will go down town and play, and, fur¬ 
thermore, the boys play with you until 
you are an easy mark for him; then he 
finds somebody who can play better than 
you can. The average boy gets a little 
tired playing with his own mother and so 
he gets out with other boys on a Sunday 
afternoon behind the lumber pile and 
gambles on the Lord’s day. They are 
playing for fun but it gets too tame and 
so he wants to play for a few nickels to 
make it interesting. From nickels he 
goes to dollars and the first thing you 


t 



AMUSEMENTS 


35 


know, mother, your boy is neglecting his 
studies, he is neglecting his work, he has 
lost his interest in church. Why? Be¬ 
cause you put your approval upon the 
thing by teaching him to play at home. 

A woman who plays cards is not as 
good a mother or wife as one who does 
not. She is bound to neglect her home 
and you ask many a woman in this city 
to attend a prayer meeting once a week 
and she will harp and howl and say she 
has no time, but she can attend three or 
four card parties during the week. If for 
no other reason, I would condemn the 
cards because they kill spiritual life, and 
then the terrible example that every card¬ 
playing woman sets for the coming 
generation. 


Society Gambling 

I go down to your mayor and say, 
“Look here, mayor. You have a lot of 
people gambling along your business 
streets, and he turns to me and says, 
“Well, Aldrich, when you stop all the 
women gambling for prizes then I can 
stop the men from gambling for the long 
green.” I tell you right now if I were 
going to gamble I would gamble for the 
long green. It is a mighty hard proposi¬ 
tion to demand of your mayor that he 
close up all the gambling hells in the city 
when some of you church members are 
doing the very same thing in yoUr parlor. 



36 


AMUSEMEN T S 


If the mayor were to start a crusade on 
gambling in this city, I should like to 
give him a list of church members to 
begin with. 

The law of this state forbids gamb¬ 
ling. It does not say whether it is 
dollars or prizes, and when you 
gamble for a cut glass dish, you are 
just as much a law breaker as the 
man who goes down in the gambling 
hell and gambles for a twenty dollar 
bill, and if the law were to be enforced 
you could be arrested in your parlor 
playing for a prize just as quickly as 
the man in the gambling hell. If the 
law were enforced and all the gamblers of 
this city were put behind the bars, there 
would be a lot of women who would not 
be in church next Sunday morning. 

Here is the law of the state on the sub¬ 
ject: Whoever shall play for money or 

any other valuable thing, at any game 
with cards, dice or checkers for val¬ 
uables, or any other articles, instrument, 
or thing whatsoever which may be used 
for the purpose of playing or betting upon 
or winning, or losing money, or any other 
thing or article of value, or shall bet upon 
any game others may be playing, shall be 
fined not exceeding one hundred dollars, 
and not less than ten.” 

Did you ever ask the man of the world 
what he thinks of card playing? Did you 
ever ask the gambler what he thinks 



__AMUSEMENTS_37 

about the game? Said the wife of a 
converted gambler recently, after de¬ 
picting the sorrow that had come into 
her life through gambling, “You may 
depend upon it there are no cards in our 
home now.” Only the other day a pro¬ 
fessional gambler, who makes no pretense 
of Christianity, told a friend that he 
never would allow his children to touch 
a card; indeed, he would not allow a card 
in his home. 

Playing for Prizes 

A woman had been out night after 
night in a series of progressive parties. 
Progressive euchre. Progressing to hell. 
She had neglected her home duties to 
win a ten dollar cut glass dish. The tie 
game had come off and they had to play 
the rubber. It was two o'clock in the 
morning and she lost, and a woman that 
she did not like very well won the dish. 
It made her almost sick. The next morn¬ 
ing when John, her big boy, came down to 
breakfast late and found the kitchen fire 
out and no breakfast ready, he went to 
his mother's room and said, 

“Mother, don't you know it is time for 
me to be at the office? There is no break¬ 
fast.” 

But she said, “Oh, my boy, I am so 
sick. I have such a terrible headache.” 

He said, “Ma, what is the trouble?” 



38 


AMUSEMENTS 


“Oh,” she said, “you know I worked so 
hard to win that prize, that ten dollar 
cut glass dish. I lost and I am just sick 
over it.” 

“Why,” he answered, “Ma, don’t feel 
so bad about that. Here, take this,” 
and he handed her a ten dollar bill. He 
said, “I was down to old Joe’s place last 
night and won this at a card game.” 

The mother threw her hands to her 
head and fell back on the bed and cried, 
“Oh, my boy? Have you been gambling?” 

I admire the boy more than the mother. 
The boy had simply gambled. The 
mother had gambled, but she had done it 
in the name of the church. That is the 
curse of the whole business. I have more 
respect for the boy than I have for the 
poor, foolish mother. He is hurting 
nobody but himself. She is setting a 
wrong example for the coming generation 
and is killing the spiritual life of those 
over whom she has influence. The person 
who plays cards at home for a prize is 
just as much of a gambler as the fellow 
who backs a jack-pot in a gambling hell 
at three o’clock in the morning. 

Nothing in the world except that the 
stimulant of ability to win points and the 
reputation of being expert players finally 
cease to gratify. It is the most logical 
thing in the world that women have com¬ 
mercialized the odds by offering prizes. 
It is rather hard to declare that some of 



AMUSEMENTS 


39 


the loveliest women among church wo¬ 
men, are in the eyes of the law nothing 
but gamblers. At first, they did not play 
for prizes, but, like the man who finds it 
necessary to go from beer to whiskey, to 
produce a stimulation after continued 
drinking, and from that to something 
stronger, the plan of playing for prizes 
has gradually expanded, until now wo¬ 
men play for silverware, while the men 
play for the silver dollars. When men 
play for a jackpot of silver, and women 
play for a silver creamer, .there is no dif¬ 
ference in the world except the shape of 
the silver. 

There lived outside the city of Cin¬ 
cinnati, a farmer by the name of Kil¬ 
gore. Kilgore was a Christian man, and 
had raised a family of Christian children. 
The oldest boy, James, had finished, his 
school work and was ready to enter into 
business. His father had decided that he 
would like to see the boy learn the bank¬ 
ing business, so secured him a position in 
a bank in the city of Cincinnati, and 
anxious that the boy might have a good 
environment, rather than putting him in 
a hotel or boarding house, he found board 
for James in a Christian home. In this 
home was a father and mother, also a boy 
and girl about James’ age. The father 
was an elder in the church, the mother 
superintendent of the primary depart¬ 
ment of the Sunday school. The young 



40 


AMUSEMENTS 


woman in that home was a Sunday School 
teacher. The young man was president 
of the young peoples’ society. James’ 
father and mother were very much 
pleased to think they could get their boy 
in such a splendid home to live. James 
and the young woman in this home had 
learned to admire one another. 

Things went well for a number of 
weeks. Finally one evening, after dinner, 
James saw them quickly clear the dining 
room table. The father and mother took 
sides across the. table, and the daughter 
on the other side, said to James, “We 
have decided to stay in this evening and 
we would like to have you join us in a 
game of cards.” James looked surprised 
and said, “My father and mother would 
not want me to play cards, they are 
Christians and never had a deck of cards 
in the house and I don’t know how to 
play.” 

The daughter spoke quickly and said, 
Why, we are Christians. Father is an 
elder in the church, mother is superin¬ 
tendent of the primary department and I 
am a Sunday School teacher, but we don’t 
see any harm in a game of cards, a quiet 
social game at home. I would love to 
teach you the game.” Now that was a 
mighty hard place to put James. She 
smiled at him, showed her pearly teeth, 
her pink lips, deepened the dimple in 
her darling little cheek, and James was 



A M U S E M E NTS 


41 


taken captive at her will. He yielded 
and took his place at the other side of 
the table. He was an apt student and 
he liked his teacher. You know that 
means a lot for a student. He soon 
learned the game, and learned it well. 
Father and mother had no show with 
James and this young lady. Playing 
with father and mother became a little 
tame and so other young people were 
invited in, but James was the winner. 
The son in that home had learned to play 
at the same table. The same mother had 
taught him the game, and unbeknown to 
father and mother he was playing cards 
down town at the club. He told them he 
had to work overtime in the office. 

One evening when James came out of 
the bank, he met this son and he said to 
James, “We will not go home for dinner 
tonight. We will eat at the club and 
spend the evening together.” James de¬ 
cided to do so and after dinner they 
joined the game. They were gambling. 
James that night was a winner and he dis¬ 
covered a short cut to fortune. This 
thing went on for a few weeks but James 
could not afford to waste his time in a 
bank at a small salary when he could 
make that much money in one night. He 
soon lost interest in his work and lost his 
position, spending his whole time gamb¬ 
ling. 



42 


AMUSEMENTS 


Kilgore had spent a number of years 
gambling in Cincinnati, when one evening 
he met on the street a son of a rich man 
who had lived in his home town. James 
knew that this young fellow had plenty of 
money. James invited him to go with 
him, told him he would show him the 
city. He brought his dinner and then 
took him to a card game to fleece him of 
his money. James had been in the 
gambling place the night before, and when 
the stakes piled high and James was the 
winner, the loser tried to get away with 
the money. James was a big strong 
fellow and he cleaned house for the bunch, 
took the stakes and left, and made 
threats that he would come back the next 
night and clean up the place. He had 
forgotten his threat and with the young 
man gave the signal for entrance. 

When the little peek hole was opened 
and they saw James, they supposed that 
James had come back to fulfill his threat. 
A pistol shot was heard. James said, “I 
felt something warm splatter on my 
cheek. I reached up and wiped it off and 
it was the brains of the young man. He 
fell with a dull thud to the sidewalk. 
Realizing what I had done I fled to the 
Union Station, took the first train and 
landed in Florida.” One night when 
passing by a place where Evangelist Cull- 
pepper was conducting a meeting, James 
Kilgore went in, was converted and now 



A MUSE M E N T S 


43 


gave us this sad story. The point I want 
you to see is that James Kilgore was re¬ 
sponsible for the murder of the rich man’s 
son and lost thirteen years of his life, 
simply because a good-for-nothing church 
member saw no harm in the social game 
at home. 

In a gamblers’ convention, not long 
ago, one of the gamblers said, "Gentle¬ 
men, whatever you do, encourage card 
playing in the home.” Fifty years ago in 
this country there was a little card play¬ 
ing in the home and very little gambling 
with cards, but card playing in the home 
became a society game and as card play¬ 
ing in the home has increased so gambling 
has increased. You teach the boy how 
to play in the home and you have opened 
the door to a gambler’s hell. 

Taught Her Own Boy in the Home 

A public speaker was speaking in my 
home state, and in his address, he men¬ 
tioned the fact that the following day he 
was going to Auburn prison. At the close 
of the meeting, a mother came to him and 
handed him a picture and said, "I heard 
you say that you were going to Auburn 
prison. I have a boy there. I wish you 
would look him up, give him this picture, 
and tell him his mother loves him.” 
The public speaker thought he would be 
doing the boy and a mother a great favor, 
and putting himself out somewhat to find 



44 


AMUSEM E NTS 


the boy, handed the boy the picture and 
said, “Your mother said to tell you she 
loves you.” The boy looked at the pic¬ 
ture a moment and said, “That is my 
mother. There are wrinkles in her face 
that were not there the last time I saw 
her.” “Yes, your mother is fast ageing.” 
The young man said, “You take the pic¬ 
ture back, and give it to my mother and 
tell her, ‘damn her/ I never want to see 
her. She taught me to play cards. I 
killed a man at a gambling table, and I 
am serving fifteen years to pay for it. 
Now she has the audacity to send me her 
picture after she pushed me behind the 
prison bars.” 

. You have no right to find fault with the 
city officials if they do not suppress 
gambling, when a thing so near akin to it 
is carried on right in your own home. I 
believe. that society, as it is constituted 
today, is doing more to damn the spiritual 
life of the church than the grog shops. 
My friends, more people backslide on the 
social side than on anything else that I 
can think of. A seemingly estimable 
woman will tear and snort and pout 
through an afternoon. What for? So 
she can take home a dinky cream pitcher 
or a whisk broom. There is nothing 
more tame than to ask a fellow to play 
cards for the fun there is in it. It makes 
no difference whether it is penny-ante or 
any other limit. So we have progressive 



A M USE M ENTS 


45 


euchre, and many church members have 
cards on their tables as often as food. 

A little New Zealand girl who was 
soloist in our party last year, was one 
time singing for Evangelist Williams. 
She said Mr. Williams was conducting a 
meeting in a large city church. The 
people in that church were too nice to 
worship in a tabernacle, and so to ac¬ 
commodate their feelings, he conducted 
the meeting in their church. Sitting down 
near the front, each evening, was a very 
wealthy society woman, who lived in a 
large beautiful home just across the street. 
Each evening, after the service, she would 
come and tell Mr. Williams how much she 
enjoyed the service, but one evening Mr. 
Williams spoke on card playing, and after 
the benediction, this woman hurried out 
and said to the pastor who stood at the 
door, “I am mad as can be.” 

The pastor questioned, “Why?” 

She said, “To think that man would 
preach against card playing. I see no 
harm in it.” 

Twenty minutes later as the pastor and 
Mr. Williams walked out of the church, 
they saw a crowd of men gathered on 
the street and in the middle of the crowd 
was this woman's son. The officers had 
just placed the hand cuffs upon him. He 
was placed in the patrol wagon and taken 
to the jail. The next morning, Mr. 
Williams and the pastor were sent to tell 



46 


A M U S E MENTS 


the mother. The mother and the two 
men went to the jail and when the mother 
saw the boy she said, “My boy, what are 
you doing here?” He cried out, “Mother, 
I struck a man at the card table last 
night. I did not mean to do it but I 
hit him too hard and broke his neck. You 
taught me how to play cards!” It is too 
bad that this poor foolish mother did not 
see the harm in the social game before 
she taught her boy to play. I have not 
time in one evening to handle these three 
subjects as I would like to. 

The Episcopal, Congregational and 
Presbyterian churches in different states 
have resorted to the dance as the means 
to keep the young people “in the church.” 
A preacher in Wheaton, Ill., is reported 
having said, in justification of dancing in 
the church-basement, the following: “Yes 
it is true, part of the evening was spent in 
dancing. A little more than a year ago 
members of the church provided a ‘social 
room’ in the basement. This was done at 
a cost of about $1,800. It was fitted up 
with a small stage and larg'e stone fire¬ 
place. One of the first entertainments 
given in it was a play by the young 
people of the congregation, which was 
repeated later. A second entertainment 
of the same general nature was ‘Alice in 
Wonderland’ by the older children. It 
was understood before the money was 
raised for the ‘social room’ that it would 



AMUSEMENTS 


47 


be used for dancing under certain careful 
restrictions, and there has been no serious 
protest, though not all, of course, are in 
sympathy with it. The department was 
introduced because of the belief of the 
pastor and the people that one of the 
most pressing problems of this community 
is that of amusement for the young peo¬ 
ple. Last Wednesday evening there was 
a splendid patriotic program, lasting until 
nearly 10:00 o’clock, and then about an 
hour was spent in dancing; and a thing 
that is frequently seen, is a father dancing 
with his daughter.” 

What else can be expected in the days 
of apostasy! This worldliness and craze 
for amusement is only a symptom of the 
wicked heart which has never received 
the love of truth. They are “lovers of 
pleasure more than lovers of God.” It 
will become worse and worse and ere long 
the professing church sowing the wind will 
reap the whirlwind. 

But what is the dance, the popular 
waltz? How and where did it originate? 
The waltz was invented about a hundred 
years ago. As might have been guessed 
or prophesied beforehand, it was born of 
the licentious stage, and is twin sister of 
the ballet. This amorous and gyratory 
hugging was first seen in a Vienna theater, 
December 20, 1787, and for a time was 
thought to be too indecent to be tolerated 
anywhere. After a time, however, it was 



48 


AMUSEMENT S 


introduced into houses of doubtful repute, 
and finally into German society. For a 
long time even Paris resisted the licen¬ 
tious libertinism of the thing, and it was 
not until the nineteenth century that it 
became fashionable. It then went every¬ 
where with a whirl, of course, for Paris 
set the fashions for the world. The French 
women of compromising conscience went 
into it with an abandon which was hit off 
by a clever writer by saying before the 
waltz, “they danced with their soles/' 
after it, “they danced with their souls"; 
aye, and soiled and wore out the latter as 
effectively as the former. 



CHAPTER III 


THE THEATER 
QUESTION 

Next we come to the theater. We do 
not judge a thing by what it could be, 
but what it has been. The question we 
are here considering is not what the theater 
should be, nor will be, nor what, under 
certain conditions and limitations, it 
might be, but what it is today as we see 
it. I know that the theater and moving 
picture shows could be institutions of 
learning, but they are not. They are run 
for money, and they must put on a sen¬ 
sational play that gets the crowd. You 
say, “Are there no good plays or moving 
picture shows?” Well, I ask you the 
question again, “How many of you were 
converted in a theater?” 

But you say, “They are not in the soul 
saving business.” Of course they are 
not, and the people who argue for them 
are not in the soul saving business either. 
If you were to find one good play or mov¬ 
ing picture show, it would be necessary to 
wade through about ten or a dozen smutty 
ones and I say the smutty ones will do 
you more harm than one would do good. 
When the church of God stops patroniz- 


50 


AMUSEMENTS 


ing the theater, it will go out of business. 
I am unable to find a theater that does 
not allow rubbish on the stage. 

When the Iroquois theater burned, the 
theaters all over the country were re¬ 
stricted, and in Chicago they were closed 
for a month. The actors said that if 
they were not opened there would be 
excessive drunkeness and that a good 
many would commit suicide for there was 
no way of entertaining the people. At the 
expiration of a month no such dreadful 
things had occurred. The public had a 
capacity for amusing itself in other ways. 
It is only a matter of amusement and that 
is trifling. The time is long past when any 
number of serious-minded citizens look to 
the theater for entertainment or instruc¬ 
tion. 

Crude melodramas, mawkish plays and 
literary clap-trap, form the staple pro¬ 
duction of the average theater. The 
extravagance is an elaboration of the 
burlesque of our grandfather’s days. It 
is estimated that closing the theaters that 
month in Chicago saved the people 
$ 2 , 000 , 000 . 

One of the papers went on to say that 
you could count on the fingers of two hands 
all the plays that have been seen in Chi¬ 
cago in a year that are worth the attention 
of anyone who looks for information. 

Israel Zangwill says that the play¬ 
wright produces his plays to satisfy the 



AMUSEMENTS 


51 


lust of the age and not for what good they 
will do the world. 

Archbishop Lennan said that to go 
night after night to the theater is a mark 
of decadence. You avoid the pesthouse 
and lepers and yet night after night you 
will rush to the theater to enjoy this pro¬ 
cession of moral lepers exposed on the 
stage for the plaudits of the people. The 
rogue and the scoundrelism and man's in¬ 
fidelity form the groundwork of most 
plays. These are paraded before the 
people as exhibitions of genius and for the 
entertainment of decent people. 

If there is any man in this generation 
who knows the theater, past and present, 
inside and out, it is William Winter. He 
is the greatest dramatic critic of the last 
half-century. In his recent work, how¬ 
ever, “Chronicles and Memoirs of the 
Stage," he pours out a stream of invective 
against its modern aspects, which we 
would not have the courage to do, to say 
nothing of the genius. In an exhaustive 
review of its present conditions and ten¬ 
dencies he leaves little opportunity even 
for the worldly Christian to find an ex¬ 
cuse for patronizing it. 

Although we hear a good deal of talk 
now and then, and sometimes by min¬ 
isters, about the reforming of the theater, 
it drags on in its slimp way to filth. 

The theater has been with us for 2,500 
years. What has been its history? If 



52 


AMUSEMENTS 


there were any hope of reforming it, it 
would have been reformed long ago. In¬ 
stead, it is getting worse all the time. 
There is no use trying to reform the 
theater. Booth and Irving tried it, and 
failed; the church of the middle ages tried 
it, and it ruined the church. Where shall 
the reform begin? From the inside? 
That has been tried as we have seen, and 
has proved to be a failure. From the 
outside? How can that be when the 
managers say that the outside public is 
responsible for the immorality of the 
theater by demanding immoral plays. No 
reformation, but abolition is the remedy. 
“But,” some one asks, “Can we not 
remedy these things by patronizing only 
good plays?” Supposing the manager 
should put on the stage one good moral 
play a week, would it not be all right 
then to attend the theater on that night?” 
No. Am I, as a Christian, asked to give 
my support to an institution that is con¬ 
fessedly immoral six nights out of seven? 
No. The Christian must make better use 
of his money than that; he must spend 
his energies in a nobler cause. The 
Christian is to try to save the world, not 
to try to make a bad institution a paying 
investment to its managers. 

So competent an authority as the 
famous actress Olga Nethersole recently 
declared that the only kind of play which 
may hope for success with English speak- 



A MUSE M E N T S 


53 


ing audiences at the present day is the 
play which is sufficiently indicated by 
calling it immoral. There is no doubt 
about it that the theater as at present 
conducted, is pulling the stones from 
the foundations of public morality; weak¬ 
ening, and in many quarters, endangering 
the whole structure of society. The at¬ 
mosphere of the modern theater is lustful 
and irreverent. It is a place Christians 
should keep away from. It is a good 
opportunity for the strong man to deny 
himself for the sake of his younger or 
weaker brother, and the weak' surely 
have no business there. 

The theater was suppressed in Athens, 
the Romans attributed their decay to it. 
Maccaulay, in speaking of the theater in 
England, says, “From the time the 
theaters were opened they became the 
seminaries of vice.” Sir Walter Scott 
said that the theater, “was abandoned to 
the vicious; the best parts of the house 
being set apart for the abandoned char¬ 
acters. 

The American Congress once adopted 
the following preamble: “Whereas true 
religion and good morals are the only 
solid foundation of public liberty and 
happiness; Resolved, that it be and is 
hereby earnestly recommended to the 
several states to take the most efficient 
means for the encouragement thereof, 
and the suppression of theatrical enter- 



54 


AMUSE M ENTS 


tainments, horse-racing, gambling, and 
such other diversions as are productive 
of idleness, dissipation, and a general de¬ 
pravity of the principles and manners!” 

It exists for money-making only. It 
has no other apology or reason for its 
existence. We recognize that money¬ 
making in itself is not wrong. No man 
can conduct a “white slave” traffic, for 
example, even though it is conducted to 
make money. You ask the managers 
themselves why they do not put on “up¬ 
lifting plays” and they quickly tell you 
they are not in the “uplifting business.” 
That the theater cannot be supported by 
moral plays is the testimony of managers 
themselves. A strictly moral play is 
seldom put upon the stage by the man¬ 
agement. How do we know? Because 
when it is every minister in the city will 
receive an invitation to witness the play. 
When a minister or a church member 
enters a theater to see a so-called “Moral 
Play,” he gives the theater Jris approval 
and that is exactly what the managers 
want, as well as the Devil himself. 

Rabbi Wise, as reported by the New 
York Tribune, said recently, “The stage 
ought to be an uplifting agency. It is 
far from that. It makes for degredation, 
for absolute moral rottenness. I wish to 
God our skirts were clean, and that there 
were fewer Jews to blame.” The man¬ 
agers seem to vie with one another in 



AMUSE M E NTS 


55 


producing the most degrading things, and 
they insult us by implying that we want 
such stuff, and that you and I do not 
want to see a clean play. I indict the 
theaters as they are today. I do not care 
if every manager is a Jew—they are all 
heathens. I indict those who are pander¬ 
ing to vice; whether Jew or Christian. It 
is the debasement of the nation, and it 
will remain so until you say, “We will 
not go near your theaters.” Is not our 
moral life insulted by what we see on the 
stage today? 

In the Grand Magazine one who signs 
herself, “An Actress,” frankly confesses 
that it is next to impossible for a woman 
to attain success on the stage without 
paying a heavy price, “promotion, more 
often than not, being at the cost of all a 
true woman holds most dear.” The 
theater presents its patrons with wrong 
views of life. Its plays are based on un¬ 
faithfulness of married life, clandestine 
marriages are made to seem heroic, do¬ 
mestic tragedy is laughed at, and religion 
is ridiculed. Its characters are unreal, its 
teachings are pervertive, its morals are 
subvertive. Moral license and liberty 
seem to be awarded, consequently the 
patrons of the play come away with those 
ideas, some, yea, many, to put them into 
practice. 



56 


AMUSEMENTS 


Its Effect Upon the Actors 

One of our leading actors says he 
hardly knows a pure woman on the stage. 
There are some but they are in the mi¬ 
nority. Anna Held tells us that the lead¬ 
ing theaters of New York and Chicago are 
owned and controlled by millionaires. 
These men and their friends have the 
privilege or demand the right and compel 
the chorus girls to dress and undress in 
their presence. The theater behind the 
scenes is greatly different than at the foot 
lights. You can not as a Christian pay 
your money to support an institution like 
that. If there was no other charge to 
make against the theater, the effects upon 
the actors and actresses are not good. 
One of the leading actresses of this coun¬ 
try boasts that she has illegitimate child¬ 
ren and in their veins flows the best blood 
of France. No actors can go on the stage 
and act out fifteen hundred murders in 
the course of his career and be as good a 
man as when he began. 

A very prominent actress who has now 
been on the stage a great many years, tells 
us that she had acted the part of being 
divorced, committing murder and adul¬ 
tery and married again twenty-eight 
hundred times. If the theater is an up¬ 
lifting institution and a school of learning 
as some people argue, why is it that the 
actors so seldom learn the lesson. My 



A MUSE M ENT S 


57 


last and greatest charge against the theater 
is, that it kills spiritual life. 

Booth and Garrick, two of the greatest 
tragedians, would not allow their own 
children to go to the theater. Macready, 
one of the famous English tragedians, 
would not allow his wife or children to see 
a play unless he had first read or seen it, 
and passed upon it, as to whether or not 
it was fit to see. Those were men who 
had character, and left honor and high 
stamp after them. Hayden said that only 
the genius of Shakespeare .saved the 
stage from the contempt of all, and yet 
you can not take the reading of William 
Shakespeare before a mixed audience un¬ 
less you read an expurgated edition. 
























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* 
































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■ 












CHAPTER IV 


THE DANCE QUESTION 

I believe the greatest hindrance for the 
salvation of the young people in this city 
is the dance. It is the biggest enemy of a 
revival I know. Those who would like to 
be Christians or at least Church members 
and dance, argue that the Bible says it is 
all right to dance. Yes, David danced 
before the ark, but he was not hugging a 
woman while he was doing it. If men 
want to dance together, go ahead. Or if 
women want to dance together, go ahead, 
but in every case in the Bible when men 
and women danced together, they had 
their heads cut off. They danced around 
the golden calf and about three thousand 
men lost their heads. 

When I hear of a dancing party, I feel 
an uneasy sensation about the throat, 
remembering that a far greater preacher 
had his head danced off in the days of 
our Lord. However pleasing the polkas 
of Herodias might be to Herod, they were 
death to John the Baptist. The caperings 
and wantonings of the ball room are 
death to the solemn influences of our min¬ 
istry, and many an ill-ended life first re¬ 
ceived its bent for evil amid the flip- 


60 


AMUSEMENTS 


pancies of gay assemblies met to trip away 
the hours. 

Abandoned women are known to be the 
best dancers. In a canvass made in one 
or two refuges for fallen women the fol¬ 
lowing facts were revealed: of the two 
hundred fallen women who were inmates 
of these homes, one hundred and sixty- 
three had fallen through the dance, 
twenty through drink, ten through free 
choice, and seven through poverty. 

May a Christian dance? Of course, he 
may. He might swear and lie too; but it 
would not make him a better Christian. 
Surely, Christian, you may dance; but 
dancing will never identify you as a 
Christian. What puzzles us is that you 
ask the question so often. Christians who 
do not dance never ask it. Yes, Chris- 
ians, dance if you can not live without it. 
Join hands with Salome, Herodias, and 
circle to the left. But don’t be surprised 
if you are taken for a goat. 

Dancing in Schools 

I am sorry that the high schools in this 
country have introduced dancing as a 
part of the social gatherings and education 
of the high school students. Statistics 
report that fifty per cent of the high 
school and college students in this country 
before they graduate are guilty in some 
form or another of sexual impropriety. If 
the truth were known some of the worse 



A M USE M E NTS 


61 


things that have happened in your own 
city to your young men and women can 
be traced to the dance. The women's 
clubs, the W. C. T. U's. and other organi¬ 
zations have raised a storm against the 
dance. It is not a motion of the feet any 
more, but of the bodies. There are just 
two things that have produced the present 
immoral condition in this country; the 
indecent dancing of women and the de¬ 
generated form of dancing. I have no 
use for a man who will advocate a muni¬ 
cipal high school dance hall. He is on 
the plane with the man who advocates 
a municipal red light house. 

A mother told me today that when her 
little girl was three years old, she began 
teaching her to count by cutting an apple 
into two parts and then into quarters and 
by other methods prepared her little 
daughter for the opening of her school 
work. The child reached the age of five 
years, and was sent off to school. Then 
mother said, “I noticed after a few weeks 
she lost her interest in the things I had 
tried to teach her and when I asked her 
if she did not learn to count at school, she 
said, 'No, my teacher does not teach like 
you, mama. She teaches me how to 
dance'." I say, it is a sad state of affairs 
when the schools of this land take the 
right from parents to give their children 
a moral training. 



62 


AMUSEMENTS 


The same mother told me that after 
the child's first year in school, she could 
not count as well as when she began 
school but that they were on the street 
together, the mother could not help but 
4 * notice the tango strut of the child. 

Passion Set to Music 

The dance is nothing more or less than 
a combination of passion and music. Now 
the music end is all right. I like rhythm 
in the music as well as you but no man 
today can place himself in the modern 
dance and not have his passions aroused. 
The square and round dances look alike 
to me. People have to have something 
to chase hurdles through their veins. They 
are not satisfied with the stately cotillion 
of years ago. It is too slow. If you are 
bound to dance, withdraw from the 
church. Get out! 

A dancing Christian is never a soul¬ 
winning Christian. Dancing is just a 
hugging match set to music. If you 
women could hear what the young men say 
after the dance about you, why they had 
rather dance with some girls than others, 
you would never go to another dance and 
you would never speak to some of these 
young men again. Every girl must not 
only fight for herself but she must make a 
fight for the young man as well. Men are 
not made like women. For every fallen 
woman there are eight fallen men. But 



AMUSEMENTS 


63 


you say, “The dances which you have at¬ 
tacked and the dance which I speak of are 
different. I mean the club dance, and 
you are talking about the slum dance.” 
It is all the same dance and the slum dance 
has the best of you, for they wear more 
c lothes than you people do. 

While Dr. Torrey was conducting an 
Evangelistic Campaign in Australia, he 
made the statement that he had never 
seen a decent dance. The dancing club 
wanted to show him that he was wrong. 
I give here Dr. Torrey’s own words:— 

“I was attacking dancing in Australia 
and I aroused a storm of protest from 
many quarters in Ballarat. One day I 
received a note from the secretary of one 
of the leading and most exclusive dancing 
clubs in that city, enclosing an invitation 
for the next dance which the club was to 
give. ‘We have heard that you said you 
never attended a ‘decent dance/ the sec¬ 
retary wrote. ‘We want you to under¬ 
stand that we give only decent dances at 
our club and we want you to come and 
see for yourself. We are sure you will 
agree with us when you leave.' 

“Of course, the invitation was only a 
bluff. The club did not expect me to 
come, did not want me to come. It was 
only bluffing, but I called the bluff. I 
sat down and wrote to the secretary that 
I would accept his invitation and would 
call at the club rooms on the night set 



64 


A M USE M ENTS 


apart for the dance. As soon as the secre¬ 
tary got my letter, of course, the club 
began to sidestep, and I was told that the 
invitation was not official and that my 
presence was not desired, but I insisted 
that it was a perfectly bona fide invita¬ 
tion, that I had accepted it as such, and 
that I intended going to the dance. 

“The night of the dance came, and I 
went to the rooms of the club, among the 
finest in the city. I found the door bolted. 
The street outside was black with people 
and thousands were crowded in front of 
the building to see what would happen. 
The door was opened a few inches and I 
presented my invitation. I was ad¬ 
mitted, but my friend was not allowed to 
enter. He was a reporter, but reporters 
have a way of always getting around a 
difficulty. He climbed up the back wall 
and managed to get in through a window. 

“Well, I was conducted to the platform 
where the orchestra was stationed, and 
given a seat where I could overlook the 
hall. ‘The next dance will be a Landers/ 
said the chairman of the evening. ‘We 
will have a few features of the round dances 
in it/ I knew all about the Landers for I 
had danced it before the chairman was 
born, but I said nothing, and sat there 
watching the performance. Of course, 
the customary features of the Lanciers 
were all omitted as I soon saw, and a 



AMUSEJVl ENTS 


65 


special kind of dance with none of the 
usual positions substituted. 

The next number was a waltz, and I 
waited with a great deal of curiosity to 
see how the members would get around 
this, for if there is anything which I 
especially desire to see in this world it is a 
decent waltz. I thought to myself that if 
I could see a decent waltz, it would be 
worth going around the world to see, and 
would be an experience which I would 
delight to take to America with me. 
When the waltz was called, the dancers 
took their positions, but I soon saw that I 
was not to be given the conventional 
waltz, where the man clasps his partner 
around the waist and circles the room 
with the girl clasped tightly to him. No, 
indeed. The dancing club had been re¬ 
hearsing during the early part of the 
evening. That was why the door had 
been locked. The dancers took their 
position as the music began, and the man 
and woman joined hands in a criss-cross 
fashion. In this cumbersome and awk¬ 
ward position, they began to dance, but 
the attempt was not a success. First one 
couple bumped into each other. The 
woman reversed as the man went forward 
and they sprawled in a heap on the floor. 
They retired to the dressing room. Then 
a second couple followed them to disaster, 
and a third, and a fourth until all of the 
dancers began to retreat toward the dress- 



66 


AMUSEMENTS 


ing room. The new style waltz, which 
had been invented for my benefit, was 
not proving much of a hit. 

“ Ts this the way you usually dance in 
Australia?' I asked, turning to the leader 
of the orchestra. He looked down at the 
floor. ‘We were so busy looking at our 
music,' he answered, ‘that we have not 
time to look at the dancers.' 

“I thought it was about time for me to 
play my part in the game. So I stepped 
out onto the floor and called the dancers 
back. The chairman came running up 
to me in the confusion and protested that 
it was no time nor place for a sermon. 
‘Why not?' I rejoined. ‘Don't you expect 
a minister to be able to preach a sermon 
wherever he goes? And anyway you say 
that this is a decent, respectable place. 
Why isn't it good enough for a sermon?' 
So I preached them a little sermon on 
Eternity, and then the dancers took there 
wraps and I followed them downstairs. 
But the street was so black with people 
that neither they nor myself could get 
out. There were cries of ‘Sermon, Dr. 
Torrey. Sermon, Dr. Torrey.' And so, 
while the dancers huddled around in full 
dress—or otherwise, just as you please, I 
preached a sermon to the crowd. That 
dancing club gave one more dance, and 
then disbanded. The effort was a failure. 
The club collapsed." 



AMUSEMENTS 


67 


The dance and decollette attire had 
their birth in a Paris brothel. Seven 
million girls go wrong in a century in 
this country, and three-fourths of them 
are ruined by the dance. The chief of 
police in New York says three-fourths of 
the abandoned creatures there fall through 
the dance. Where did the drunkard get 
his first drink? In the social glass. 
Where did the gambler get his first lesson? 
In somebody's parlor. Where did the 
prostitute feel for the first time the pre¬ 
mature incitement of passion? Down on 
the ball room floor. Think of it, young 
man! You who sit there in your man¬ 
hood, think of it! You that love woman¬ 
hood for womanhood's sake. You who 
have a sister. Three-fourths of all the 
abandoned women fall as the result of the 
dance. Statistics only change in the ad¬ 
justment, but the percentage holds good 
year after year. There are 700,000 
public prostitutes in the United States. 
Their average life is from three to five 
years. Three hundred and seventy-five 
thousand are the result of the dance. 
Am I my sister's keeper? Sisters, if you 
countenance the dance, you are your 
sister's murderess. You are responsible 
for her fall, because you could have 
thrown your influence against it. You 
become responsible for every fallen person 
so long as you champion the dance. You 
are responsible for every rotten, puking 



68 


AMU S E M E N T S 


drunkard as long as you vote for the grog 
shop. 

Fallen Man as Bad as Fallen Woman 

I believe that a fallen man is just as 
bad as a fallen woman. The reason there 
are eight times as many fallen men is 
because man is not built like woman. He 
.has eight times the passion that a woman 
has, and his passions are aroused eight 
times as easy as those of a woman, and 
in the face of these facts, I am not going 
to be too hard on you young women. It 
may be possible for a young woman to 
dance the modern dance and not think 
any evil while she is doing it, but I want 
to tell you that that man does not live, 
if he is a normal man, that can go into 
the modern dance today and come out 
with prayer meeting thoughts. The 
reason men dance is because they like 
their passions aroused. 

Make men dance by themselves and 
women dance by themselves and you will 
kill the dance in two weeks. You can 
get just as much exercise dancing with a 
man as with a woman. But you do not 
dance for the exercise, it is for the hug. 
You say, “But, Mr. Aldrich, that is not 
true. When I dance, I always dance with 
my own wife.” With who? What did 
you say? I don’t believe it. It isn’t 
your wife you want to dance with, you 
old_sinner. It is the other fellow’s wife. 



A M U S E M E N T S 


69 


A man would rather sort patotoes in an 
old musty cellar all night long by lantern 
light than he would go to a dance and 
dance with his own wife. 

I never could understand why it was 
necessary to gallop a mile to get a hug. 
Did you ever hear of an old bachelors’ 
club having a ball? How long would 
young men stick to the dance if they had 
to dance with grandmothers? A man 
drinks without women and you gamble 
without women but you make men and 
women dance alone, and you will kill the 
dance, and you know it. Say, if you dance 
because you like to dance, you can dance 
with some old lobster just as well as with a 
woman. The German and other round 
dances are favorites and the liberties 
taken would not be tolerated anywhere 
else in the world. When you die you do 
not send for the dancing master to pray 
over you. 

Suppose your neighbor who is a fine 
looking young man, should call at your 
home and give your wife a few lessons in 
dancing, and you came into the house a 
little unexpectedly and found this young 
man in your parlor with your wife, taking 
the liberties with her that a man takes 
with a woman on the dance floor, what 
would you do? Well, if you did not have 
good control of yourself, you would 
probably shoot him and there is not a jury 
in the state that would convict you of 



70 


AMUSEMENTS 


murder. I say if it is right to take these 
liberties on the dance floor, it is right to 
take these same liberties in your parlor. 
The time or place has nothing to do upon 
the effect it has upon the man. 

A New York Report 

New York, May 27th.—The Grand 
Jury today handed down a presentment 
against modern dances. Within the last 
few months the amount of suggestive, 
sensual dancing, in hotels and restaurants, 
where the sale of liquor is allowed, has 
greatly increased in the city of New York,” 
reads the presentment, “and we believe 
with deplorable results to the morals of 
the young.” 

The General Association of the Congre¬ 
gational church of the state of Iowa, 
passed the following resolution but a few 
years ago: “Resolved that in the 

opinion of this association the practice 
of dancing by members of our churches is 
inconsistent with the profession of religion 
and ought to be made a subject of disci¬ 
pline.” 

While leaving the matter of discipline 
to each church the Presbyterian denomi¬ 
nation in its general assembly has said: 
“We regard the practice of promiscuous 
social dancing by church members as a 
mournful inconsistency and the giving of 
such parties for such dancing, on the part 
of the heads of families, as tending to 



AMUSEMENTS 


71 


compromise their religious profession; and 
the sending of children by Christian 
parents to the dancing school is a sad 
error in family discipline/' 

The Methodist church was raised up 
for the very purpose of counteracting the 
dance in the church, and called Wesley 
to purify the Episcopal church, and that 
movement which crystallized in the Meth¬ 
odist church was the rebuke which God 
gave. 

Listen! I will take the oldest church in 
Christendom—the Roman Catholic. Do 
you think that you can be a Catholic and 
do that? I will give you a quotation 
from a letter from the bishops and the 
archbishops in plenary council: “In 
this connection we consider it our duty 
to warn our members against the amuse¬ 
ment which may become to them an 
occasion of sin, especially the fashionable 
dance which is disgusting and revolting 
and fraught with the greatest danger of 
morals." Why is it that the Catholic 
church is getting stronger every day in its 
opposition to worldly amusemnt,especially 
the dance? It is another argument in 
favor of the confessional. By that we 
can tell how our people fall. How do 
they fall? They can trace the laxity of 
nineteen out of twenty who have lost their 
purity in the ball room. 

Bishop Hopkins, of Vermont, said: 
“Dancing is a terrible waste of time, and 



72 


A MUSE M E N T S 


of study, and a premature incitement of 
passion.” Bishop Cox of New York, said: 
“The enormities of the theater and the 
dance would not be tolerated another 
minute, if the mothers would only set 
their faces against them.” Classes pre¬ 
paring for confirmation are notified by 
him that he will not lay hand upon them 
unless they are prepared to renounce their 
sins. The bishop quotes from his records 
that the waltz would not be tolerated if 
the. Christian mothers would only set 
their faces against it and remove their 
daughters from this contamination. Alas! 
that women professing to follow Christ 
should not rally for the honor of our 
daughters and drive these things from 
society. 

Any one who understands it at all can 
see without a moment's reflection that the 
chief indictment against the dance is that 
in its nature, in its tendency and in its 
results it is dangerous to social purity, 
and that all other reasons for condemning 
it dwindle away into insignificance in 
comparison with this. It ought not to 
take any facts or figures to prove this. 

Here are the dancers, locked, you will 
allow me to say, at least partially, in each 
other's embrace, moving as one body 
across the floor, the man gazing upon the 
half-concealed charms of his partner, 
blowing his warm breath upon her ex¬ 
posed arms and breast, that almost magic 



A M IT S E M ENTS 


73 


and ungovernable electricity darting be¬ 
tween their meeting fingers, their blood 
heated and quickened at every step until 
the heat of one body passes into the other. 
Do you mean to say that a man can give 
himself to such a thing like that hour 
after hour and not be in danger of having 
the pure white of his soul sullied by that 
which is unchaste and unclean? 

A man is not made of putty or marble. 
He is made as all men are and these 
quivering bundles of nerve and passion 
can well afford to get along without an 
environment, the tendency of which is in 
the direction just noted. Granting that 
none but the purest-minded men ever 
dance, no man's mind is thought-proof, 
and any indulgence which may cause man 
to fling away or lose the eternal jewel of 
chaste thought and its sequel proves 
bestial and degrading, is hardly a thing 
for a Christian to defend. 

Woman, you may not understand this; 
but man, you understand it all and you 
know that it is all true. You ought, if 
you are a pure woman, much more a 
Christian, to think very carefully before 
you give yourself to an indulgence with 
those that encourage the things we have 
mentioned, even though there could be 
no possible harm to yourselves. You 
surely do not mean to say that you are in 
no wise responsible for the virtue of the 
young men. If you do, in heaven's 



74 


AMUSEMENTS 


name, let me ask you, “What is your idea 
of a Christian, anyhow?” I do not care 
how big you make your sleeves. I do 
not care so much how you make your 
collars, just so you have collars. I like to 
see women dressed up—all the way up. 
It is queer that woman, upon whom 
modesty’s blush has its natural home, 
should become the leader of immodesty. 
Women are more immodest than men. 
Did you ever stop for five minutes and go 
to the bottom of the thought in which 
decollette was born? Did it ever occur 
to you that she who wears a decollette is 
lacking in genuine modesty? I don’t 
blame sweet girls. There is not a sixteen- 
year-old girl in the land that has sense 
enough to take care of herself, and that is 
why God gave her a mother; but I do 
blame the mothers who thus expose their 
pure, sweet girls to the immoral gaze of 
the average young man of this country. 

I have been getting a number of letters 
recently asking me what is the difference 
between dancing with a young man or 
skating with a young man. Over in West 
Duluth a whole Sunday School class came 
forward in our West Duluth tabernacle 
and decided to give up the dance. Since 
that time young men who liked to dance 
have been putting up the argument that 
there was just as much harm in skating 
with a woman as it is dancing with a 
woman. There is absolutely no compari- 



A M USE M ENTS 


75 


son between the two. There is no better 
exercise than skating. I have never known 
of any harm coming from men and women 
skating together. I have played cornet 
to a good many dances and I am a pretty 
fair skater. I have seen both and think 
I know what I am talking about. What 
about the other games? I have not time 
to answer all your questions tonight on 
these things but I will give you this one 
answer. Anything that will hurt you 
mentally, physically, and spiritually, you 
can not afford to do. Anything that is a 
help to you mentally, physically, or 
spiritually, go ahead. Anything that you 
can not ask God’s blessing upon, don’t do. 
Did you ever know of a dance where just 
before the music started, the leader of the 
dance stepped out in the middle of the 
dance floor and said, “Everybody bow 
their heads now. We are going to ask 
God’s blessing upon our evening together.” 
That thing would be so inconsistent, but 
during our campaigns we have had skat¬ 
ing parties and coasting parties among the 
converts and we have always asked God’s 
blessing upon our evening together. 

After speaking of the fashionable amuse¬ 
ments of the world, and mentioning es¬ 
pecially dancing, it is said of the pro¬ 
fessing Christian who indulges in it, that 
he furnishes satisfactory evidence that he 
has not yet put off concerning the former 
conversation, the old man, which is cor- 



76 


AMUSEMENTS 


rupt, according to the deceitful lusts, not 
put on the new man, which after God is 
created in righteousness and true holiness, 
and that He thus brings dishonor and re¬ 
proach upon his religious profession, 
throws a stumbling block in the way of 
sinners, offends them that are weak, and 
grievously wounds the Saviour in the 
house of His friends. 

The Church of Christ, the Disciple 
Church, is as pronounced as anyone of its 
recognized authorities has said, “Dancing 
is offensive not to the ignorant, pre¬ 
judiced and weak people, but to the best 
informed, the most pious and devout.” 
If there were nothing else against it, that 
would stamp it with the seal of condem¬ 
nation. In the Methodist book of dis¬ 
cipline, paragraph 248, under the head of 
“Imprudent and UnChristian Conduct,” 
we find that mention is made of attending 
dancing parties, patronizing dancing 
schools, and it is there stated that private 
reproof shall first be given by the pastor 
or leader, but that upon a second offense, 
the pastor or leader shall take with him 
one or two discreet members of the church; 
while upon a third offense, if there be no 
sign of real humiliation, the guilty one 
shall be expelled.” 

“Well,” you say, “I do not care what 
my church says; I am going to do this 
thing anyhow.” And is this your idea of 
a true church member and a consistent 



AMUSEMENTS_77 

Christian? You, who stood at the sacred 
altar and before God, before the saints of 
earth and high heaven, made your vow 
not only to renounce the world but to be 
obedient to the will of your church? Is 
it possible that you prejudiced your soul 
or has it come to this, that you no longer 
care? But we are not quite alone. We 
have gathered testimony from every 
quarter but one. Let us not forget the 
word of our God. In First Corinthians 
10:31, Paul says, “Whether ye eat or 
drink or whatever ye do, do all to the 
glory of God.” If you conscientiously 
kneel down and ask God to go with you 
it may be right for you to go, if no other 
question is involved, but unless in that 
thing to which you give yourself the 
Holy Spirit can glorify Jesus it is wrong 
for you to indulge. In any undertaking 
I should want to know, “Will this please 
God?” 

Calling upon one of his parishioners, a 
certain pastor inquired concerning the 
daughter who was away at college. The 
mother said, “I was just reading a letter 
from her as you came in; part of it will 
interest you.” And she read a part of 
the letter where the daughter was telling 
the mother of a dance that was to be 
given by her class; most of her friends 
were going and she wanted to go herself 
very much indeed, but she knew her 
mother did not approve of it, and for her 



78 


AMUSEMENTS 


sake she was going to stay away. “Well/’ 
remarked the pastor, “that is very beau¬ 
tiful of her indeed; you must love her 
very much.” “Love her,” replied the 
mother, as a tear came into her eye, “I 
wish she were here now, that I might put 
my arms around her and tell her how 
much I love her.” In some such a way as 
that I would like God to feel toward me, 
and I am sure He will if I am trying in all 
things to walk “worthy of the Lord unto 
all pleasing.” 

Second—Then Paul states the question 
from the standpoint of the man's neigh¬ 
bor. In First Corinthians 8:9, he says 
such things ought not to be done “lest by 
any means my liberty becomes a stumb¬ 
ling block to them that are weak.” We 
all know what he means, and in I Cor. 
8:13, he says, “If meat makes my brother 
to offend I will eat no meat while the 
world stands.” Although I might engage 
in this thing without any harm to my¬ 
self, I am furnishing by my example 
what others take as their justification for 
doing it, but who are not so discerning 
or self-controlled as I, and while I may 
be spared they may be injured and fall 
and set their feet in the way that leads to 
ruin. 

Two little boys, one leading his smaller 
sister, were going through the woods. 
They came to a tree that had fallen 
across the creek and formed a natural 



A M U S E M E N T S 


79 


bridge. The first little fellow bounded 
over and turning said, “Come on, it is 
easy." But the other gripped his little 
sister's hand a little tighter and shrank 
back, saying, “I could, but she might 
fall." And I say to you that that little 
fellow had more of the Spirit of Jesus 
Christ in him than the members of many 
churches who will not deny themselves 
some pet indulgence for the sake of some 
one weaker than themselves. 

Third—“And then Paul states the mat¬ 
ter from the standpoint of the man him¬ 
self. In First Corinthians 6:42, he says 
such things are inexpedient, “lest I be 
brought under their power." If these 
things or any other things have taken such 
strong hold upon you as to cause you to 
prefer them to the approval of God or 
the honor of Christ; if you are at the 
place where many a young member of 
the church has been when they have 
said, “If these things are inconsistent 
with my being a member of the church, 
I shall cling to them nevertheless." Then 
for you these things are an evil in your 
life. 

And in First Corinthians, 10:23, he 
says they are inexpedient “because they 
do not edify." They hinder growth and 
fill the church with barren, fruitless lives. 
A prominent Christian worker once said, 
“I never knew a Christian that began to 
dance who was not soon missed from the 



80 


A M USE M ENTS 


prayer meeting.” Having loved this 
present world, Demas-like, they soon 
forsake the things of God. It seems there 
is an incompatibility between the two 
which experience proves will not abide 
each other. 

Dance for the Exercise 

Some young woman says, “Mr. Al¬ 
drich, I dance for the exercise.” Yes, you 
little frizzled top. If you would go home 
and help your mother wash the dishes 
you would get all the exercise that is 
coming to you. I want you to notice one 
thing about the dance, and the cards, and 
the theater, it is this that people never 
get too low to do these things. The cards, 
the dance, and the booze, go hand in 
hand. In the lowest down booze joint and 
gambling hells of any city, you will find 
the cards and the dance. An old hag down 
in the slum of a city never gets too low 
to dance or play cards. Thank God, 
people get too high. I have God to thank 
for a heaven-sent conscience on social 
purity, even before I became a Christian, 
but since a young man of nineteen, I have 
known the Christ and I have had not 
only a new inspiration but a new strength 
in trying to fulfill the command, “Keep 
thyself pure.” I would not think or do a 
thing of shame, not because of its effect 
upon myself, either mentally or phy¬ 
sically or socially, but because I know it 



A M U S E M E N T S 


81 


hurts the heart of my Father in heaven 
who has been so good and kind to me. 
And yet I know myself as you know your¬ 
self, and I say it without shame that the 
struggle of my life has been just along 
the line we have been discussing. And I 
have thought of a young man who had 
the inspiration of a Christian ideal who 
knew his Christ and had His help and His 
strength to keep his mind and his heart, 
if he could not give himself without harm 
to these things, what shall be said of the 
young man who has no such inspiration, 
and who does not know the Christ, and is 
a stranger to His help and strength and 
even though he cares to be pure, to say 
nothing about those who are not so con¬ 
cerned. 

The Most Dangerous of the Two 
Crowds 

I see here in my imagination a fourth- 
class saloon on a back street. In the rear 
end of the saloon is a black, dirty, pine 
table. On this pine table is a greasy deck 
of cards, and a bottle of liquor, and a little 
pile of coin. Around this table sit four 
old gamblers, who drink from the bottle 
and gamble with the cards for the little 
pile of silver. Take another scene. An 
elegant so-called Christian home; all 
members of the family have their names 
upon the church record. There is a series 
of beautiful carved-oak tables. On each 



82 


A M U S E M ENTS 


table lies a deck of pretty silk cards, and 
around each table is gathered an ele¬ 
gantly dressed company of people, three- 
fourths of whom are church members, 
some of them, possible, officials in the 
church. On the center table stands a 
beautiful cut-glass vase, and they are 
playing progressive euchre for the vase. 
Take these two pictures, and look at 
them for a moment. In the sight of God 
and the laws of our land the one is as 
much gambling as the other; both crowds 
should be arrested and brought before the 
courts for shooting craps. 

There was on the bench in the city of 
Chattanooga, a short time ago, a judge 
who had the courage to so instruct the 
grand jury. As I look upon these two 
pictures, with my precious boy standing 
by my side, I speak the truth when I say 
I fear the latter more than I fear the 
former. The former will never get your 
boy, nor will it ever get any ambitious 
boy or any of our boys from the better 
circles of life. That old saloon, that old 
table, that old greasy deck of cards, those 
old gamblers, have nothing in them to 
captivate the boy or pull him from the 
paths of virtue. They would all have a 
tendency to drive him from the place of 
vice. But that elegant home, those 
beautiful tables, those silk cards, and that 
elegant group of polite society, the bril¬ 
liant lights, and the delightful music, will 



A M U S E M E NTS 


83 


capture my boy and capture your boy. 
Our boys matriculate in the latter and 
graduate in the former. I tell you tonight 
men and women if the society crowd 
never gets your boy and girl that rough¬ 
neck crowd never will. They learn to 
play in the home. The social game is a 
kindergarten. A house of ill-fame is 
where they graduate and get their di¬ 
ploma. 

A Dancing Teacher’s Confession 

Professor Faulkner, chairman of the 
Dancing Masters’ Association on the 
coast, who had six private dancing schools 
of his own and had an income of $1,000 a 
month, was converted, and gave them up; 
and if there was no harm in it, why did 
he not keep on? Prof. Faulkner said 
that he knew of one private dancing 
school that sent six girls into houses of 
ill-fame in three months. He talked with 
two hundred girls and found that one 
hundred and sixty-five fell as the result 
of the dance, twenty by drink, ten by 
choice, and seven' from poverty. Where 
do you find the accomplished dancers? 
In the brothels; and they were taught 
in dancing schools. 

Down in one of our eastern states a 
friend of mine was conducting a revival 
meeting and in the meeting one night a 
young man stood up and told this story. 
He said he had been married three years 



84 


AMUSEMENTS 


when one morning as he was leaving the 
house the young wife said to him, “Dick, 
this has been a happy three years and you 
have been the best kind of a husband. You 
have given me everything heart could 
wish, but there is one thing more I want 
to ask.” 

Dick answered, “Of course, Molly, if 
there is anything that I can do, I will be 
glad to do it.” 

She said, “Dick, I wish you were a 
Christian.” 

He looked at her in surprise and said, 
“Molly, are you a Christian?” 

She replied, “Yes, Dick, I belong to the 
church.” But he said, “I want to ask 
you a question. You do not get drunk, 
do you?” 

“Oh,” she said, “Of course I don’t. 
Why do you ask such a question?” 

“Well,” he said, “I don’t either.” 

“Molly, you don’t steal, do you?” 

“Why,” she said, “Have you lost your 
mind? Of course I don’t steal.” 

“Well,” he said, “I don’t either.” 

“Molly, you play cards, don’t you?” 

“Oh, yes,” she said, “I don’t see any 
harm in the cards.” 

“Well,” he said, “I don’t either.” 

“Molly, you dance, don’t you?” 

“Why yes, Dick,” she said, “I love to 
dance.” 

He said, “So do I. Now, Molly, if 
you will show me where your life is any 



A M U SEMENT S 


85 


better than mine, then I will be a Chris¬ 
tian.” 

He walked out and left her. He had 
only gone a little way down the street 
when he returned to the house for some¬ 
thing that he had forgotten. As he stepp¬ 
ed in he saw Molly kneeling and sobbing. 
He knelt by her side and put his arms 
around her and said, “Molly, I did not 
mean to be harsh with you.” 

She said, “Oh, Dick, you were not harsh 
with me. I have been asking God to 
forgive me. I have been a good-for- 
nothing church member, an inconsistent 
Christian. God has forgiven me and I ask 
you to forgive me. I am going from now 
on to be a real Christian and show you 
that there is something in Christianity.” 

Dick went down to his office a little 
uneasy. He said as he stood in the 
meeting and told that story, “This hap¬ 
pened fourteen months ago. I resolved 
that morning that if my wife made a suc¬ 
cess of her Christianity, and I saw a 
change in her life that lasted one year, I 
would be a Christian too, and I am here 
tonight a Christian of two months be¬ 
cause of the consistent Christian life of 
my wife.” 

Wives, I say to you tonight, if you are 
going to win the husbands of this city for 
God you will have to go home and live a 
consistent life in the home. You can not 
be a soul winning Christian and play 



86 


AMUSEMENTS 


cards and dance. If this was the only 
harm, it is harm enough, but remember, 
if you sow wine on the side board, you 
are going to reap drunkards. If you sow 
cards in the social game, you will reap 
gamblers. If you sow the dance in your 
parlor or in the high schools of your city, 
you will reap harlots. How many of you 
tonight, whether church member or not, 
do see harm in the cards? Stand on your 
feet. How many of you tonight will take 
a stand against these evils and go home to 
burn the cards and to renounce the dance? 
Come on, church members, this city needs 
a clean-up in the church. 



























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